Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities

by James Cuno (Editor), Thomas G. Weiss (Foreword by), Irina Bokova (Foreword by), Simon Adams (Contribution by), Marwa Al-Sabouni (Contribution by)

Overview

A pathbreaking call to halt the intertwined crises of cultural heritage attacks and mass atrocities and mobilize international efforts to protect people and cultures.
 
Intentional destruction of cultural heritage has a long history. Contemporary examples include the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan, mosques in Xinjiang, mausoleums in Timbuktu, and Greco-Roman remains in Syria. Cultural heritage destruction invariably accompanies assaults on civilians, making heritage attacks impossible to disentangle from the mass atrocities of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing. Both seek to eliminate people and the heritage with which they identify.
 
Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities assembles essays by thirty-eight experts from the heritage, social science, humanitarian, legal, and military communities. Focusing on immovable cultural heritage vulnerable to attack, the volume's guiding framework is the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), a United Nations resolution adopted unanimously in 2005 to permit international intervention against crimes of war or genocide. Based on the three pillars of prevent, react, and rebuild, R2P offers today's policymakers a set of existing laws and international norms that can and—as this book argues—must be extended to the protection of cultural heritage. Contributions consider the global value of cultural heritage and document recent attacks on people and sites in China, Guatemala, Iraq, Mali, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. Comprehensive sections on vulnerable populations as well as the role of international law and the military offer readers critical insights and point toward research, policy, and action agendas to protect both people and cultural heritage. A concise abstract of each chapter is offered online in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish to facilitate robust, global dissemination of the strategies and tactics offered in this pathbreaking call to action.
 
The free online edition of this publication is available at getty.edu/publications/cultural-heritage-mass-atrocities. Also available are free PDF, EPUB, and Kindle/MOBI downloads of the book.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606068083
Publisher:	J. Paul Getty Trust, The
Publication date:	09/20/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	636
File size:	35 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

James Cuno is president emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
 
Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science and director emeritus of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center.

Table of Contents

Contents Foreword Preface and Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations Introduction Part 1. Cultural Heritage and Values Introduction: Part 1 1. Who Are We? Identity and Cultural Heritage 2. Why Do We Value Cultural Heritage? 3. Cultural Heritage under Attack: Learning from History 4. The Cultural Heritage of Late Antiquity 5. The Written Heritage of the Muslim World 6. Valuing the Legacy of Our Cultural Heritage Part 2. Cultural Heritage under Siege: Recent Cases Introduction: Part 2 7. Uyghur Heritage under China’s “Antireligious Extremism” Campaigns 8. When Peace Is Defeat, Reconstruction Is Damage: “Rebuilding” Heritage in Post-conflict Sri Lanka and Afghanistan 9. Performative Destruction: Da’esh (ISIS) Ideology and the War on Heritage in Iraq 10. The Destruction of Aleppo: The Impact of the Syrian War on a World Heritage City 11. The Lost Heritage of Homs: From the Destruction of Monuments to the Destruction of Meaning 12. Reconstruction, Who Decides? 13. Yemen’s Manuscript Culture under Attack 14. Cultural Heritage at Risk in Mali: The Destruction of Timbuktu’s Mausoleums of Saints 15. Indigenous Threatened Heritage in Guatemala Part 3. Cultural Heritage and Populations at Risk Introduction: Part 3 16. Cultural Cleansing and Mass Atrocities 17. Choosing between Human Life and Cultural Heritage in War 18. Saving Stones and Saving Lives: A Humanitarian Perspective on Protecting Cultural Heritage in War 19. Engaging Nonstate Armed Groups in the Protection of Cultural Heritage 20. After the Dust Settles: Transitional Justice and Identity in the Aftermath of Cultural Destruction Part 4. Cultural Heritage and International Law Introduction: Part 4 21. Protecting Cultural Heritage: The Ties between People and Places 22. International Humanitarian Law and the Protection of Cultural Property 23. International Human Rights Law and Cultural Heritage 24. Customs, General Principles, and the Intentional Destruction of Cultural Property 25. Prosecuting Heritage Destruction 26. Fighting Terrorist Attacks against World Heritage and Global Cultural Heritage Governance Part 5. Cultural Heritage and Military Perspectives Introduction: Part 5 27. Protecting Cultural Heritage on the Battlefield: The Hard Case of Religion 28. From Kyoto to Baghdad to Tehran: Leadership, Law, and the Protection of Cultural Heritage 29. Practicing the Art of War While Protecting Cultural Heritage: A Military Perspective 30. Peace Operations and the Protection of Cultural Heritage 31. Protecting Cultural Property in Armed Conflict: The Necessity for Dialogue and Action Integrating the Heritage, Military, and Humanitarian Sectors 32. When Peace Breaks Out: The Peril and Promise of “Afterwar” Conclusion: Toward Research, Policy, and Action Agendas Contributors Index

Editorial Reviews

The book's 32 chapters provide readers with rich historical information surrounding international cases of tangible cultural heritage and threats to its preservation.

CHOICE - K. M. Woosnam

An informative and thought-provoking work of seminal scholarship.

Midwest Book Review - Micah Andrew

This overview of endangered cultural heritage adopts an interesting viewpoint.

The Art Newspaper - Gareth Harris